Suspects in string of burglaries on the run

A man and woman suspected of committing burglaries up and down the coast, including several in Del Norte County, are now wanted for breaking into a Harbor, Ore., antique shop and making off with more than $15,000 in stolen jewelry and coins.

“Both suspects are on the run,” Curry County Sheriff John Bishop said Tuesday. “We don’t know where they might be, that’s why we’re asking for the public’s help.”

The last known address of both suspects, Robert Thomas Hider, 43, and Lisa Diane Montel, 45, is in Eureka, Bishop said.

The pair, he said, may have headed south into Del Norte or Humboldt counties and are possibly driving a 1997 maroon-colored Chevy utility vehicle with a California license plate of 3VLY397.

Both are suspected of shattering the front glass door of the Pacific
Coast Antique Mall and Collectibles in Harbor at 4:45 a.m. Friday,
Bishop said.

An alarm at the store alerted the owner and a private security patrol, but the suspects were gone upon their arrival.

“I think they had cased the business and knew what they were going for,” Bishop said.

A review of security video taken at the time of the crime and the day
before yielded enough evidence to issue arrest warrants for both, he
said.

The suspects are also wanted in California on warrants for burglaries
in Crescent City and Del Norte and Humboldt counties, he said.

The couple also ran afoul of Curry County authorities in January 2008.
Hider and Montel were arrested at separate times in Brookings by
sheriff’s officers after their car was stopped by Brookings Police.
Officers believed that both were suspects in burglaries in Brookings,
Harbor and Gold Beach, as well as in Crescent City and Del Norte County.